10 Local SEO & Search Marketing Tips

The Internet is by far one of the best resources to find information about local businesses and places. Today, a majority of consumers as well as small business owners rely on search engines of various natures and sorts to communicate with each other. This is the key reason why search engines have emerged as the world’s biggest marketplace. So, there is a huge opportunity for local SEO & Local Search Marketing.

You can easily attract local customers by following proven techniques: –

1. Claim Your Listing – Top search engines such as Google, Yahoo and Bing provide local listing option that can be claimed by simply logging in to your account, filling out the appropriate information of your business and by verifying your listing through a phone call or post card to your address.

2. Add Images – These local sites provide image identification services to users. Thus, it’s important to add images of your business that helps consumers identify your products or services making it one of the branding elements.

3. Check Business Information – One of the main facets of local search marketing includes targeting top local listing sites and checking your business information if already listed. Updating your current business information including picture, company contact, reviews and recent changes allow these sites to view your listing properly. The idea here is to correct your business details in all the local sites.

4. Consumer Reviews – Reviews not only bring trust in your product or services but also boost ranking in local search results. Ask your costumers to drop a few lines about your business, services, support or products on Google, Bing or Yahoo local.

5. Negative Reviews – Credibility is the biggest asset for a business that brings more trust to potential customers. “Nobody is perfect” is also applied to businesses, thus a bad opinion balances the trust in other way. You should promote them but at the same time you cannot ignore them. (Beware of your competitor and identify original reviews from your customers.)

6. Mailing Address – Your Mailing Address is important and should be present in contact pages and footer of your website. Re-check your local listings address, it should be the same as your website.

7. Local Phone – Make sure to add contact phone number in text instead of image including local area code before the number.

8. Think like a Searcher – How do you search product/services in search engine?

Most of the searchers including you go with the flow of Google instant search, especially when search a different product/services. e.g. a searcher looking for “search engine optimization” may also go for “search engine optimization services” at the same time a searcher who types “social media marketing” may also go for “social media optimization”. Adding these keywords in local listing’s description and tags improves your search rankings.

You should also add auto suggested keywords in description and tags. These are mainly user defined keywords that double the performance of your local listing.

9. Different Landing Pages to Different Locations – If your business has more than one location, you should create different landing pages for different locations in your website. Having the same url or home page in all the listings may result into a lower rank or can get completely banned from search results.

10. Customer Satisfaction – Customers are the prime target of your online and offline marketing activities. Bringing them to your website for once is not going to work in the long run. A satisfied customer may bring multiple customers via social media referrals, emails and reviews. At the same time, they may refer you as a “Bad Choice” if not satisfied with your services/products.

Being bias will not solve the purpose as a local customer has multiple choices. Instead, evaluate your offerings and take many steps towards product betterment for Local SEO success.